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Topic: Reorganization of the Tape Project (Read 3453 times)

Now that Dan & Eileen are retiring, some of you are curious about the way the company will be moving forward.

Romo and I, with some help, will be keeping it all going, and expanding as we go. We will use the forum to post the details as they develop.

By mid-January all the parts of the operation that have been done in Bainbridge Island will be relocated to our facilities in the Bay Area, and we will be packaging and shipping from here. The duping is already done here.

A lot of our most popular titles already show as Out-Of-Stock on the website, but that is just temporary while we transition. They have been duplicated, and will be packaged and ready for shipping right away. The current release--Mozart Piano Concertos--is already arriving on our subscribers' doorsteps. It will be available for everyone to order very shortly after we complete the move. Then we get to work on to our next title.

We will post the new customer service phone number in this thread as soon as it is operational. For the time being, any questions that you don't get answered here on the forum can be emailed to paul at tapeproject dot com.

I already got the Mozart so am only down to the last of Series three. I guess it's time to start saving for new releases (series or individuals, depending on how the new TP evolves). Do please keep us posted.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Chad Kassem has given you the highest compliment. At the RMAF show panel (where Romo participated and got a big hand of applause for the TP), Chad said that he basically copied the TP when he was setting up his new Ultra Tape Series. Having received his first two tape releases, I can say that the packaging, the two reel albums, much of the copying chain using the Ampex ATR-100 series machines, and even the pricing follows the lead of the TP. I can only see Chad's entry providing a major new source of tapes, and a larger base of tape owners who then will be potential new customers for TP. I know over the past two weeks, I sold both my BH modified Technics and my Otari MX5050BIII-2 to two audiophiles who have been thinking about getting into tapes. So there are two potential new customers(a dentist and a retired surgeon) for the TP. Don't worry - I now own two ATR-102's and my wife said for every new one, an old one had to go!

All the stuff from the Bainbridge Island office has now been transferred to our undisclosed location in the Bay Area, and the elves are hard at work setting things up.

A few of the Out-Of-Stock titles will be showing back up in the next few days, with more coming soon, until everything is back in stock.

Shipping will not be quite as fast for a while. We were proud that we were able to ship the same day as the order was received, or the next day if it came in later in the day. We are working to get back to that level, but for now there might be a couple of days delay in shipping.

Thanks for your patience during the transition. There are a lot of moving parts in the process. If that hasn't been evident, it's because Dan and Eileen had it running so smoothly. We'll get back to that point, soon we hope.

We have all the parts of the company now located back in the Bay Area. We have been shipping orders as they come in. We have also been duping both new and older titles, and we have lots of them on the shelf. They are not currently in inventory on the website, but only because we are still getting all the packaging worked out. Specifically we are waiting on just one small part: the gold foil labels that go on the spine of the slipcases. The supplier of the blank label sheets sent us the wrong version, and we are waiting for them to get us the right one. This is one of the most frustrating parts of being a manufacturer--being dependent on many suppliers who each may have their own issues with delivering their piece of our puzzle. But we just have to roll with it and keep moving forward. It looks like this will get resolved in about three weeks, and then we will have the shelves full again.

Certainly before summer, but we haven't scheduled an actual release date yet.

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And from then it's individual title purchasing right?

Right, Xavier. We have outgrown the Series model. We have so many titles available, and so many new customers coming in, that it makes more sense for people just to order what they want from the whole catalog.

There will be a delay in shipping because...well, because I haven't hired and trained a new shipping person and I have to go away for a bit. You may place orders, and everything will get shipped when I return March 15.